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<h2>Menubar: Overview</h2>















<h3>What it does</h3>

<p>In your site, the menubar is a customizable column along the left of
the screen that contains links to numerous collaborative tools. Site
leaders have special permissions to add, edit, and delete tools with
Worksite Setup or Site Info. Therefore, the same tools will not appear
in every site.</p>

<h3>Key concepts</h3>


<p><strong>Adding tools:</strong> A site participant with the
appropriate role can modify the content of the site's menubar by
adding or subtracting tools using the Site Info tool.</p>

<p>The site owner can choose to display (or hide) the following tools
in the menubar:</p>

<ul><li><strong>Home:</strong> This is the course or project site
homepage. Home can contain a list of recent announcements, discussion
items, and chat messages. Also, participants can access Privacy
Status, and Messages and Forums notifications here.

<br /><br /> 
</li><li><strong>Announcements:</strong> Post current, time-critical
information (e.g., to inform users of changes in the schedule or
policies of the class).

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Assignments:</strong> Post, submit, and grade online
assignments. Your participants can submit assignments electronically
for grading and comments.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Blogger:</strong> Create journals that are available on
the web.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Chat Room:</strong> Hold real-time written discussions
with other site participants. Chat is faster and more convenient than
waiting for participants to post in the discussion area.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Discussion:</strong> Post asynchronous conversations by
topic or category.

<br /><br /> 
</li><li><strong>Drop Box:</strong> Create areas for private file sharing
between site leaders and participants.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Email Archive:</strong> View email sent to the site.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Forums:</strong> Create discussion forums.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Gradebook:</strong> Calculate, store, and present grades.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Messages:</strong> Add private messaging to your site.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>News:</strong> Link to RSS newsfeeds.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Podcasts:</strong> Manage individual podcasts
and podcast feed information.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Polls:</strong> Site leaders can post simple
multiple choice polls for voting by site participants.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Post'Em:</strong> Upload and share <code>.csv</code> files
to display feedback (e.g., grades and comments) to site participants.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Presentation:</strong> Present a slide show of images to
many viewers at once, or have them step through the show on their own.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Resources:</strong> Upload, store, and share files and
URLs.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Roster:</strong> View the list of site participants.

<br /><br />

</li><li><strong>Schedule:</strong> Post and view deadlines and events
(e.g., class session dates, assignments dates, and cancellations).

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Search:</strong> Search for site content.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Section Info:</strong> Create official course subgroupings
or sections (e.g., labs or recitations) that are revealed in various
tools (e.g., Resources).

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Syllabus:</strong> Create and display a course syllabus,
or have it point to a pre-existing online syllabus.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Tests and Quizzes:</strong> Create and deliver tests and
surveys.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Web Content:</strong> Add web page links to the menubar.

<br /><br />
</li><li><strong>Wiki:</strong> Collaborate with other participants to
create and maintain web pages.
</li></ul>

<p>Site Info displays information about the site for site
participants. Site leaders can use this tool to add participants, edit
tools, manage groups, and import files. This tool is part of every
site, and cannot be deleted from the menubar.</p>




<p>The Help tool has support documentation for all the tools, and can
contain links to other support resources.</p>

<p><strong>Note:</strong> Your system administrator controls which
tools are available on your system. When new tools become available,
or users' needs change, your system administrator can add tools to the
system, and then they will appear in the list of tools that you can
add to your site.</p>

<h3>Things to consider</h3>

<ul><li>If your system allows it, create a practice site so that site
participants can familiarize themselves with the tools, functions, and
options.<br /><br />
</li><li>To avoid the accidental loss of resources, assign roles wisely.
Assign roles with broad permissions only to co-instructors and others
whom you can trust to edit your site. Everyone else should get a more
restricted role, allowing access but not site manipulation. For
instance, if another participant removes the Syllabus tool from your
site, it will irreversibly remove the syllabus information that you
stored there.
</li></ul>



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